Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo on May 26 announced that the JCP launched a signature-collection campaign calling for the total withdrawal from nuclear power generation.

Shii at a press conference in the Diet building pointed out, “The ongoing crisis at the Fukushima No.1 Nuclear Power Plant proves to the public the dangers behind nuclear power generation.”

Although the nuclear power generation technology has not been fully established yet, successive governments have intensively built nuclear power plants in one of the world’s most earthquake- and tsunami-prone countries by sticking to the “safety myth” without having devised adequate safety measures, Shii pressed.

He then said, “The JCP will launch a national campaign urging the government to make a political decision to break with nuclear power generation and to formulate a timetable to establish a Japan without nuclear power plants. As one of the ways to help achieve this, we are starting a signature-collection campaign calling for a total withdrawal from nuclear power generation.”

Asked by reporters about cooperation with civic movements calling for a halt to nuclear power generation in many parts of Japan, Shii stated, “Even if there is a difference between the JCP and these movements in regard to how to break away from nuclear power generation and reliance on nuclear energy, we will seek cooperative relationships with people who share the fundamental demand of a total ‘withdrawal from nuclear power generation.’”